


Sheet Music, Bed Business and Pillow Talk

by AxeMeAboutAxinomancy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Time, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:25:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2017908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy/pseuds/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's taken to going about in a sheet. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sheet Music, Bed Business and Pillow Talk

**Sheet Music**  
  
He's taken to going about in a sheet. Again.  
  
John doesn't know exactly why Sherlock is going without clothes. He just is. He takes over any room he is in as though the subject of a painting. All available light bends and folds itself towards him to illuminate the whiteness of the sheet and the contrast with Sherlock's skin. He looks pale in the dark and vivid colours he usually wears, but wrapped in pure white he glows with health, reflecting back light from his skin with peach and copper, and blue shadows in the whorls of his dark hair... and other things John makes himself stop thinking about as often as he can. Though he's almost completely covered in his sheet, tantalising hints of Sherlock make themselves known as shapes underneath, ripples in the water.  
  
At the Palace, John had been able to offset some of the sexual charge of it because, well. The _Palace_. And he doesn't think for a minute that HRH doesn't have her own bank of monitors (such as he imagines Mycroft seated in front of, when he isn't picturing him swivelling round in a wing chair holding a cat). If she saw Sherlock take that ashtray…But no, it seems to have been one more thing for Sherlock to get away with, like sitting starkers in his sheet on the Queen's bloody sofa.  
  
John remembers only too well the moment when Mycroft had stepped on the trailing edge of that sheet and nearly pulled it right off Sherlock's body like a telly host revealing the prize of a Brand New Car. Sherlock had barely caught it in time. There had been the merest, startling little _glimpse_ of his arse before he had hauled it up again, barely decent and quivering with rage.  John has wondered more than once what would have happened if Mycroft had been just a bit quicker with his foot, or Sherlock slower with his hand. What would the Queen have seen on her bank of monitors as she smoked and patted her corgis? What would have been witnessed by all present?  
  
What, in short, would John have got to see?  
  
Would Sherlock have bent down to snatch up the sheet? He had grabbed for it with lightning speed. Would he be graceful bending down? Surely yes to that. He wouldn't have just stood there, bare arsed…Surely. Then Sherlock had threatened to walk away leaving Mycroft's foot still pinning his sheet to the carpet. Would he have done, had John not said something? Was he just floating the idea of it before John's eyes like a phantom?  
  
Now, months later, John sits in his chair with his laptop open, ostensibly working up a blog entry, but in fact watching Sherlock swanning about the sitting room. It had been ridiculous in the first place for John to have asked him if he were wearing any pants in the Palace. It had been obvious then and it is obvious now that the whole point of it is that he is naked in there.  
  
Sherlock rustles by again. John breathes in hints of shampoo, cologne, and smoke. He flexes his foot just slightly, as though preventing it from going to sleep.  
  
Does he dare to do it?  
  
Is Sherlock daring him to do it?  
  
Did Sherlock notice, back then, some tell John didn't know he was displaying, that makes him try this on now?  
  
What will he do if John puts his foot down and catches the trailing edge of that sheet as he goes striding past?  
  
Will he grab for it, bend down to get it, stand there?  
  
Will he turn to John with a roll of his eyes, at this juvenile prank? Hands on his hips, "Really, John?"  
  
Or will he…  
  
Smile?  
  
Be embarrassed?  
  
Be angry…  
  
Will he laugh at John for revealing how very badly he'd wanted a good long look?  
  
Maybe he shouldn't do it, after all. Maybe Sherlock will be angry. Maybe it is just the stupid sort of thoughtless prank that could ruin everything.  
  
But he can't stop thinking about it, if Sherlock doesn't stop walking around in that sheet.  
  
Sherlock sighs for what seems like the dozenth time. John has not actually kept count, but there has been a lot of sighing.  
  
Right, then. If he's that bored, why not now? But rather than let it seem like a prank, he says, "Sherlock. Would you come here for a moment?"  
  
Sherlock obeys with startling alacrity.  
  
"I've got one question." Oh, do not let the hammering of his heart sound in his voice. He licks his lips, he can't help that.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Your sheet," John says. "Not at the Palace, but lately. Now. Is it for my benefit?"  
  
The terror of free fall, right here in the comfort of his chair. He looks up at Sherlock, and Sherlock looks down at him.  
  
Sherlock is turning pink. It is especially noticeable against the whiteness of his sheet. He opens his mouth, closes it again. Plenty of time to look at that mouth again, and for the series of thoughts provoked in John by it.  
  
"Because it's okay if it is," John adds quickly. "I mean it's - Fine."  
  
At this, Sherlock seems to blink quite a lot.  
  
"Yes," he says at last, after a terrifyingly long pause filled with blinking.  
  
John starts to feel that perhaps the earth's crust has not been yanked out from under his chair. A smile fights its way onto his lips against his will. He wants to be serious. He doesn't want Sherlock to think he is joking.  
  
He glances down over the sheet, then up again at Sherlock's face.  
  
Sherlock moves a few steps closer. Close enough to touch, almost standing between John's knees. He looks down at John with such hope in his eyes, hope that John will understand this problem of human relations, his department, and do something to help Sherlock understand, help him get through.  
  
John reaches out, reaches up, takes a bit of Sherlock's sheet between his fingers, and raises his eyebrows as he looks into those eyes.  
  
Sherlock's lips part, he stares down at John in fascination, and ever so slightly, nods his head.  
  
John pulls the sheet.

* * *

 

  
 **Bed Business**  
  
At last, John finally took the hint and made a move. Sherlock was starting to wonder if he would have to escalate further, but he already tried wearing lace knickers in case John would like to see him in lace knickers and what Sherlock learned that day was, lace knickers were itchy and unacceptable. Lace knickers went directly into the fireplace and did not come out.  
  
But there were such things as silky knickers, and he'd been thinking in that direction when, now, John finally snapped and pulled the sheet.  
  
"I hope you're interested in having sex right now," Sherlock said, not in the form of a question.  
  
John's eyes were moving over him in a frightened, fascinated sort of way, and Sherlock straightened up as though to say, And I'm tall, don't forget that.  
  
Then John's eyes met his.  
  
"I want to," he said in a strangled voice. "Not quite sure what you're expecting, though."  
  
"Nothing alarming," Sherlock sniffed. "Nothing particularly abnormal."  
  
"Well, that's reassuring," said John. "I don't think."  
  
"John, I am standing here, naked in the sitting room. Do something about it."  
  
John did something about it. John took him upstairs to his bed.  
  
Sherlock would have preferred his own, it was bigger, nearer the bathroom, and had infinitely nicer sheets - but he was a literal beggar, or so it seemed to him. He would choose next time, but he was not going to risk annoying John out of The Mood. As it was, he was inclined to position himself between John and the door, which was the only immediate escape route.  
  
"And take at least some of these things off," Sherlock said, stepping close and plucking at John's awful oatmeal jumper. "Be fair."  
  
"Well, help if you're so keen," John said, and Sherlock did. John was rather rumpled and red in the face by the time Sherlock was done, but they were both naked, which was what mattered.  
  
"Oh John, you're lovely," he said, and John laughed in a way that wasn't happy. Sherlock stared at him in confusion.  
  
"Compared to you?" John said.  
  
"Why would I compare you to me? Why would I want me?" I have me, he almost said, I have me on a regular basis - but stopped short in time.  
  
"Well but I mean - someone - _like_ you. Someone…" John shook his head, compressing his lips in a way that meant Refusing to Continue.  
  
"There is no one like me," Sherlock scoffed. "And you must know, John, there is no one like you."  
  
"No, I don't know that I know that."  
  
"John. What are you imagining here? An indulgent, sentimental me? A me that tells little white lies?"  
  
"You tell enormous lies every single day."  
  
"Well, but not this!"  
  
John laughed and sighed and shook his head, all at the same time. Sherlock took the opportunity to step closer.  
  
"You also smell good," he offered.  
  
"All right, all right. Is this actually you, fishing for compliments? You need me to tell you how attractive you are?"  
  
"I know what I look like," Sherlock snapped. "But John, you don't know what _you_ look like."  
  
John just stared in incomprehension.  
  
"Fine. Here," Sherlock said, and he pulled down the window blind, drew the curtain. He shut the bedroom door, and turned off the light. The room was plunged into darkness.  
  
"Oi!" said John.  
  
"Now," Sherlock said, "Now neither of us look like anything."  
  
He moved toward the bed. Then he bumped into something in the dark, and John laughed at him.  
  
"Shut up," and Sherlock tried to brush off the warm hand that suddenly found his arm, but John's laugh, it turned out, was not completely unkind. He guided Sherlock to the bed beside him. They sat so close their bare thighs were touching. It made Sherlock feel peculiar all over his skin. It was wonderful.  
  
And then John leaned close and kissed him, mouth finding Sherlock's unerringly in the dark like a kiss seeking missile. The first kiss, and Sherlock did not get to see John's face, but that was the price he'd had to pay to shut John up about comparitive attractiveness. Honestly, who cared? As long as they were each other's, who cared?  
  
The kiss was full of nonvisual data, however, and Sherlock had plenty to concentrate on. John's skill at kissing should have been expected, but subjective experience was sometimes of greater weight, Sherlock was coming to find out.  
  
John's skill at kissing was _lethal_.  
  
John's hands were warm and seeking, too, and soon they pressed Sherlock back onto the bed, and the feel of John's skin all along his skin was so exquisite. Sherlock blessed the darkness, allowing him to concentrate on the tactile, the auditory, the olfactory... Ah, and lest he forget…Gustatory. He'd wondered on many occasions what John's skin would taste like…  
  
However, John quickly disrupted Sherlock's concentration on how delicious he was by snorting with laughter and wriggling out of his grasp. "Sherlock!" an unhelpfully framed complaint.  
  
"What."  
  
"You're _licking_ me."  
  
"We are naked in your bed. Is licking an unacceptable activity?"  
  
"Well, but you're licking my _arm_."  
  
Sigh.  
  
However, this presented an excellent opportunity to be encouraging. "Show me how I should do it then."  
  
"'Show', in the dark?"  
  
"Yes. In the dark." Since John was so distracted by appearances.  
  
John rose to that challenge quite splendidly. He was a soldier, after all. He had to be combat ready in adverse conditions, such as darkness, or being in a room a flight of stairs away from the bathroom.  
  
John got down to bed business the way he chased down a criminal: decisively, doggedly, and with gusto. His tongue, so devastating in kisses, was even more formidable elsewhere on Sherlock's body. His neck, his nipples, his navel were all subjected to attack in quick succession,  a bombing run, and Sherlock's gasps seemed so terribly loud in the small, dark room.

 

* * *

  
  
 **Pillow Talk**  
  
"You're not…being…very scientific about this, you know."  
  
John pauses, then smiles in a way that Sherlock should be able to feel. "No, I suppose not," he says, and his voice shows the smile too. "I think it's more of an art."  
  
That seems to strike Sherlock dumb for several long moments. John takes advantage of the time by sliding his fingertips feather-soft over Sherlock's ribs and the hollow of his belly.  
  
John's belly is so not hollow. He's so glad Sherlock turned the lights off.  
  
Sherlock's skin is so warm and smooth -and obviously sensitive - and what hair he has on his body is very fine.  
  
"But I…I…can't just get data on licking when you're also - kissing and touching and - ohhh _John_ ," when John's fingers slide down to touch a hard, hot cock that is not his own. It is not a surprise to his mind, which chose to do this, but it is to his hand. Sherlock's flesh feels shockingly hot against his startled palm. His own is aching, a slow burn that Sherlock's audible pleasure keeps stoking a little hotter.  
  
"You can get all the data you want - later," John breathes against Sherlock's throat. Sherlock's moans make his throat vibrate under John's lips. "Experiments, within reason. But not right now."  
  
John could swear he feels that cock jump a little in his hand at the mention of 'experiments'. (He's also certain that the caveat 'within reason' went unheard by any of Sherlock's organs.) He eases off a little, trying not to set Sherlock off too quickly, the pads of his fingers feeling the texture of unseen veins, then slipping suddenly in precome.  
  
"John," Sherlock moans, "I want - I want - "  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"I want - to do something for you."  
  
John is glad again of the dark, this time to hide his face.  
  
John settles himself alongside Sherlock's body, pressing his own aching cock against Sherlock's hip.  
  
"Talk to me," John murmurs. "Let me hear your voice."  
  
There is a pause. Now John wishes the lights were on, so he could see what Sherlock looks like when he does not know what to say.  
  
"Doesn't have to be words, if you can't think of any," he adds. "Your voice is so fucking sexy you could probably get me off by reciting pi."  
  
"I could?" says Sherlock, then suddenly he turns and seeks out John's mouth to kiss, clumsy in the dark.  
  
This kiss seems to work like a spell, releasing Sherlock's voice from wherever it was imprisoned. The Fortress of Embarrassment.  
  
"I have sexual fantasies about you," Sherlock informs John, his voice a low and confidential purr.  
  
"You do?"  
  
"Oh, yes." Sherlock reaches down between them, hesitant at first and then matching John's own boldness. John groans so that he almost misses hearing Sherlock say, "Often times in cabs."  
  
"You - " John tries not to let the laugh sound in his voice, "you fantasise about doing it in cabs?"  
  
"No," impatiently, "I fantasise in cabs." A beat. "About doing it."  
  
And then they are both laughing, even as they fumble through a mutual hand job in the dark. John finds giggling against Sherlock's silky hide to be an unexpected addiction.  
  
"You mean. When you're sitting there next to me, 'thinking about the case' - "  
  
" _Sometimes_ I am thinking about the case." Sherlock waits for John to quiet down. His hand goes still, too, which is an effective deterrent. But then Sherlock goes on, "And sometimes I am thinking about things like…that day. At the Palace, in nothing but a sheet. You come in and sit down beside me. You ask me if I'm wearing any pants and I say No. We laugh a bit, but then…you say you don't believe me." His big hand has resumed stroking John's cock. Whatever his complaints about data, he seems to be gathering plenty without the lights on.  
  
"I tell you to see for yourself, and you turn to me and pull the sheet off, and I am naked beside you on the sofa. And you tell me I'm brilliant. And by the time Mycroft comes in, you are shagging me on the coffee table and the ashtray is broken on the floor."  
  
John catches his breath, half in laughter, half in lust.  
  
"How do I pull the sheet?" he asks, his voice rough, breath unsteady. He's very close. "One big pull, or do I unwrap you like a present?"  
  
"You touch it," says Sherlock, "and it dissolves like a cloud."  
  
This absurd detail - well, it is a fantasy after all - nothing to do with sex at all, but it is what makes John gasp, boiling over suddenly, coming into Sherlock's hand.  
  
" _John_ ," his voice a rich, layered dessert of wonder and desire, and then he thrusts urgently at John's hand a few times before John, his wits half scattered by pleasure, remembers what he is doing and tightens his grip on Sherlock's shaft, stroking firmly.  
  
Sherlock makes an incoherent sound as he writhes in John's arms, a long low wail whose vowel sound might be the O of John's name. Wet hot drops strike John's hand and wrist. Sherlock curls around him, trembling, his breath warm on the top of John's head.  
  
The two of them cling to each other, dazed, then they are kissing, gasping, laughing.  
  
After a bit, John wipes his sticky hand off on the sheet and thinks, Next time, Sherlock's room. His sheets to besmirch, and the bathroom just there.  
  
"John," Sherlock says in a dreamy tone. "You don't mind my having fantasies about you?"  
  
"No," says John honestly, and then after a moment's hesitation, pushes up on his elbow, reaches over and turns on the bedside lamp. Sherlock blinks owlishly. John looks down over his bed, at their naked mingling bodies, then up at Sherlock's face. Sherlock looks…Debauched. His smiling lips are bruised by kisses and his hair is gloriously disordered. John doesn't really recall biting Sherlock's neck, but that pale skin does. He is a work of art. Erotic art.  
  
"I don't mind you going about in a sheet, either," John tells him. "And I definitely don't mind you not wearing pants under it."  
  
"Good," Sherlock says, reaching to pull John back down. "Now. About that data."  
  
  
  



End file.
